


superhero love triangle

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Humor, Injury Recovery, M/M, Secret Identity, Slow To Update, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23202550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: "It's not my fault I'm late, there was a superhero fight right on top of the train. Dinner still good?""Apart from it being cold!" Yuzu threw after Ichigo as he escaped. "Which ones?""Oh, Gamuza and Spoonhead," he called down the staircase. "She curbstomped him into the rails with all four hooves, it was beautiful. Kinda ruined the tracks, though."He pushed his bedroom door open."I like how that has never been his name and yet everybody knows who the fuck you mean instantly."He pulled his bedroom door closed.Heart thundering in his ears, Ichigo stared at his own hand on the door handle. Was there really -- no. A hallucination. Maybe Gamuza had kicked a piece of rebar in his direction on accident and now he was in a coma or something. They were rushing him to the hospital right now. Desperate to save him before his brains leaked all the way out. Yeah, that sounded better.He pushed his door open again, just a crack."You close that in my face again and we're gonna have a problem," notorious supervillain Pantera mused, propped up on one elbow on Ichigo's bed.--You know those classical superhero-genre love triangles that actually only contain two people? Yeah.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Zangetsu
Comments: 173
Kudos: 674





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> !!Heads up, this is a TEASER!! 
> 
> I love the premises but I don't have a solid plot down yet and might never find one; all I have for sure is what I posted here. It might stay unfinished forever and ever and ever. Fair warning.

"You're _late_ , Brother!"

Yuzu emerged from the darkness with ladle in hand. Ichigo yelled, in a manly fashion. 

Their dad was off at some conference and Karin had a soccer club shindig; finding the living room dark he'd thought Yuzu had gone to bed, or at least to her room to surf wholesome teenage baby sister websites that in no way contained compromising photos of pop stars with their shirts off and glitter in strange places.

Maybe she'd have been in a better mood if she had looked at some glitter today, he thought, and immediately regretted it. Nope, not going there.

"I know, sorry, sorry!" Ichigo kicked off his shoes into their corner and started unbuttoning his coat as he moved briskly toward safety. "It wasn't my fault this time, there was a superhero fight right on top of the train. Dinner still good?"

"Apart from it being _cold!_ " she threw after him as he escaped up the staircase. He wasn't even halfway up when her tone turned back to conciliant, maybe even a little curious. "Which ones?"

Phew. Yuzu appeased; safety reached. "Oh, Gamuza and Spoonhead," he called down the staircase. "She curbstomped him into the rails with all four hooves, it was beautiful. Kinda ruined the tracks, though."

He pushed his bedroom door open.

"I like how that has never been his name and yet everybody knows who the fuck you mean instantly."

He pulled his bedroom door closed.

Heart thundering in his ears, Ichigo stared at his own hand on the door handle. Was there really -- no. A hallucination. Maybe Gamuza had kicked a piece of rebar in his direction on accident and now he was in a coma or something. They were rushing him to the hospital right now. Desperate to save him before his brains leaked all the way out. Yeah, that sounded better.

He pushed his door open again, just a crack.

"You close that in my face again and we're gonna have a problem," notorious supervillain Pantera mused, propped up on one elbow on Ichigo's bed.

He was sprawled on his side across the whole length of Ichigo's mattress; he'd bunched up the comforter at his back to lean on and it spilled over his shoulders and covered his legs and _he wasn't even **on** Ichigo's bed, he was **in it**_.

That... That _motherfucker_.

Breathing very slowly through his nose, Ichigo stepped inside his room and closed the door behind him. He didn't let go of the handle straight away, for fear that he would throw himself and his bare, soft-skinned, human hands at a guy known for crashing through cement walls and walking away unscathed.

"Does my sister know you're here?" he asked, as level as he could -- his voice shook a little. Cracked. God, Yuzu. Yuzu casually humming away as she fussed around the living room, while overhead lurked a guy notorious both for shoving his hands through people's torsos and for his total lack of chivalrous feelings toward women. Pantera didn't care if you were a man or a woman or anything else; if you were in his way, he was gonna go through you. If you'd pissed him off before that, he was gonna laugh while he did it, too.

"Hm. Nah." Pantera watched him for a minute, wordless. Ichigo could only stare back. 

He didn't think Pantera had ever been seen or filmed so _still_. He didn't think he'd ever seen him look thoughtful -- or maybe that was just boredom. Ichigo couldn't... Pantera couldn't go wild in his _house_. Not with Yuzu here. Not with the _neighbors_.

Shamelessly barefaced -- he'd never bothered with a full mask, didn't seem to care who could recognize his civilian identity, like a dare to come find him -- come find his fucking _face tattoo_ , a cat skull's fanged jaw following the line of his own. Long spills of borderline cyan hair everyfuckingwhere. His hands not even shifted black and claw-tipped where they rested casually on Ichigo's bedsheet, on the jut of his own hip -- just pale, faintly scarred, normal nails, normal hands. 

At least he was still in costume otherwise... 

Which meant he had his boots on in Ichigo's bed. 

Ichigo was gonna murder him this time around.

"She ain't gonna find out unless you tell her," Pantera added, and pushed himself up to sit.

Ichigo heard the strange hitch in his voice before he saw -- the comforter shifted -- _red_.

Oh. Wow. 

"That's a lot of blood," he remarked thoughtlessly.

"No shit?" Pantera retorted blandly, his eyelids heavy with unimpressed boredom.

"A lot of blood _on my bed linens_ ," Ichigo shot back, and took a step forward, eyebrows furrowing. Shit, it really was. The guy was pressing one of Ichigo's T-shirts on his ribs, under his arm, and it was already soaked through. "How are you planning for her not to find out again?"

"Maybe do your own laundry for once, eh?"

"Oh my god, _fuck_ you. I'm gonna have to throw all that away. It's not coming out. I liked that shirt, you bastard."

The look Pantera leveled at him was -- unexpected.

Not a predatory stare, not a sneer, not even a wide, fanged grin, ready to bite. Faintly distant, just a ghost of a smile on thin lips.

"You're a mouthy little shit, huh. No wonder Zangetsu likes you."

Mouth still open to bitch some more, Ichigo froze.

Pantera _didn't know who he was_.

Oh. Well. That... Huh. Backfooted, Ichigo could only make a baffled sound out loud. Pantera snorted. 

"Tell him not to borrow your shirts anymore. Anyone else that can track by smell thinks to check it out and you're fucked."

Ichigo laughed humorlessly, more of a shocked exhale of breath than anything else. "Yeah, uh. I'll... I'll do that."

Today was a fine day for learning that his shitty brain squatter smelled different enough that it was easier to assume they were _entirely different people_. Jesus, nice whiplash.

"You uh. Tracked me down? When the fuck did you smell my sh-- never mind, you're still bleeding all over my sheets, what kind of insane nose do you even have."

"Was more of a pet project," the supervillain sitting on his bed mused, tone just oh so slightly choked up behind the carelessness. Ichigo watched red bloom further across his shirt. "I found you weeks ago."

"That's... Reassuring. I'm reassured. Lay back down, I'm getting the first aid kit."

He started to turn around and then his wrist was caught -- a slap of skin on skin, tight enough to hurt a bit. He got yanked backwards and almost stumbled right back into Pantera, who had lunged out of bed too quickly to see and was now hissing between his oddly human teeth.

"Hey, hey, _hey_ , not so fast."

 _'Let me kill him'_ , Zangetsu grumbled, but half-heartedly.

 _ **'That's** when you fucking wake up?'_ Ichigo shot back, annoyed. _'When he has me? Big help you are.'_ But he tried to sigh the tension out. The hold was going to be uncomfortable in a minute, but his bones weren't even a little bit broken. It was kind of surprising. He arched an eyebrow at Pantera. "Yeah?"

Now his shirt was red all the way from top to bottom. This wasn't going to be fixed with butterfly bandages. How hadn't the guy passed out yet? He was just scowling up at Ichigo now, like he couldn't make sense of him. 

... Right. Think civilian thoughts. Ichigo shifted his weight a little and tried to look nervous. "No, seriously, what?"

"You got no fear reflex left, huh. Guess that's good." His voice dropped into something more veiled, more serrated along the edges; he rubbed the ball of his thumb slowly on the inside of Ichigo's wrist, over the veins, and something needle-sharp snagged and then traced a faint line. "I get that you've got to be pretty ballsy to handle _that_ guy. But you call the police or the hospital or anyone at all and it won't be you who handles me, it'll be that girl downstairs. You get me?"

_'... Let me kill him.'_

All Ichigo could answer and _mean_ that wasn't a "be my guest" was, _'Ask me again in five minutes.'_ Gritting his teeth, hot with anger, he gave a stiff nod.

"Yeah, sure. Anyway. This is a clinic. I've got medical stuff. And I really don't feel like having to dump your corpse, it's a fucking pain. _May I go_."

"Sure. Bring back some dinner while you're at it."

The asshole had the gall to grin at him, wide and suddenly fangy. When he released Ichigo's hand his fingers trailed across Ichigo's skin. Ichigo yanked free, turned stiffly away -- didn't slam the door closed behind him but only because Yuzu might hear and wonder what was going on. If she thought he was brooding she would absolutely try to get into his room to talk it out. Which. No.

He stopped on the second step in the shadows to breathe, eyes closed tight, to try to order his thoughts.

Pantera thought Zangetsu was his friend.

_'Aw, King, but I am. I'm the best friend you'll ever have.'_

Ichigo seemed to collect assholes for friends, so that was even kind of vaguely true. If you squinted. 

_'You ungrateful whore,'_ Zangetsu cackled. Ichigo growled under his breath.

He could have shoved him down until he didn't hear the grating screech of his voice, but then if anything happened he might not react in time, might not pull Zangetsu back up fast enough, and that was not something he would allow. He was gonna have to deal with the peanut gallery and raging homicidal impulses.

Okay. Pantera thought he was Zangetsu's friend, and they _really_ hadn't gotten along the few times they'd clashed out there over bank robberies and the like. So why was he here? Injured. Taking hostages.

 _'He ain't safe anywhere else.'_ Zangetsu hummed thoughtfully, less cruelly amused and more... Quieter. Colder. In Ichigo's experience that was always more dangerous.

"But he's safe with _me_?" Ichigo hissed as quietly as he could. _'Worse, with **you?** '_

Had to be other villains after him. Fuck. That fucking _dick_. Ichigo worked on his breathing some more, eyes feeling tight and hot, the lines of the staircase too visible in the dark. The back of his neck prickled dangerously.

 _'No!'_ he ordered; but Zangetsu didn't fight him to come through for once.

_'Not stupid, King. He sees us, he'll go straight after our sister. Get her out of the way first.'_

Suddenly Ichigo was exhausted. _'And then?'_

 _'I kill him,'_ the alien creature sharing his body said with simple finality.

"I guess I did tell you to ask again in five minutes," Ichigo mumbled, and then sighed soulfully and started trudging down the stairs again. "Ugh."

There was still a chance this would end without any more bloodshed. Pantera wanted to lay low; if he hurt Yuzu he had to know that was definitely not gonna happen. Maybe he only needed to be here until tomorrow. 

But Ichigo sure as hell wasn't doing the Tsukishima thing again.

Thankfully, Yuzu was in the bathroom when he came down. He didn't know what Sweets Smash life she was on, though, so he hurried. He slipped into the clinic to raid the sutures and related stuff; then he had to do a controlled glide in his socks on the wooden floor to snatch up the platter of food waiting on the counter and rush back up before she was done washing her hands.

"--Hey! Brother, no food in the bedrooms!"

Fuck fuck fuck. He galloped back up, keeping his back rigidly turned. "That wasn't thirty seconds! Go back and wash your hands properly, you piggy!"

"Oooh _you_ \--"

He slammed the door of his bedroom closed, and went to put his armful down on the desk.

Pantera's head shot back up from where it had been resting on Ichigo's fucking pillow (of course); the man glared.

Then he tried to push himself back into a sitting position and swooned right back down on the pillow.

Well, hell.

"... Let me see the wound. Who got you?" He squirted antibacterial soap onto his hands as he moved closer, crouching next to the bed. 

"Some guy who won't be a problem much longer," Pantera grunted back, watching him warily. "Don't get any bright ideas yourself."

It wasn't impressive when his head was barely off the pillow. Ichigo huffed as he tugged on the ruined t-shirt. "I told you I didn't wanna have to dump your corpse, chill."

The man let go. New blood welled up instantly. Shit. Not good.

"So." Ichigo put the t-shirt back on the wound and pressed down. Pantera bared his teeth in a silent hiss, but didn't fight him. "Cards on the table."

"What."

"Two choices. I wait for you to pass out, call an ambulance, if you live you end up in prison -- shush -- you get out of prison angry, nobody is happy. That or you never wake up, either-or."

Pantera squinted meanly at him. Some more warm blood seeped out past Ichigo's palm.

"Second choice is you let me suture this right now, but you're absolutely going to pass out. I can't guess how many painkillers you'd need with your metabolism and we don't have time to wait for them to take effect anyway."

Pantera squinted some more, and Ichigo finally admitted to himself that the guy was likely seeing him really fuzzy-edged. Maybe not hearing him too well, either. Even earlier he'd been fronting quite a bit -- lounging because standing up would _not_ have worked out -- and it was not getting better. Ichigo was gonna have to run down to get an IV bag. If he could only ask Yuzu...

He was gonna have to ask Yuzu. But he was gonna have to wait for him to pass out first. No way was Ichigo letting the dude interact with his sisters. Better if Pantera assumed he needed to stay discreet; if he thought he had to scare Yuzu or worse to keep her in line, Ichigo was gonna murder him for real.

 _'At least we know exactly where to put him if he does_ ,' Zangetsu commented almost-idly.

Ichigo grimaced. _'Silver lining's hella thin there, partner.'_

He was still waiting for Pantera's response when the man responded by passing right out. Face gone slack and eyes closed almost all the way, vacant, head rolling limply on his pillow and all of that. Ichigo tested it out by picking up his hand and letting it drop; no reaction.

Yeah. Okay. Good enough. 

" _Yuzu_ ," he called out in Zangetsu's crackling voice, keeping up pressure on the wound one-handed. She was there in seconds, mouth pinched white, the five-tipped cross at her neck glowing silver right through her shirt.

"... _Oh_."

"Yeah."

A sigh; he made sure Pantera was still out with a quick pinch to his arm, then looked back at his sister. "I'd let you suture him, but if he wakes up he's gonna wake up snarly. You're on sponging up duty, kiddo."

Nodding fiercely, she turned around to go get her supplies. "Clear plastic sheet, IV bag -- surgical gowns?"

"Yeah!" He pressed harder; Pantera exhaled shakily without waking up, producing the quietest whine he'd ever heard. " _Hurry_."

"At least if he dies," she yelled back, "we know where to put him!"

 _We_ , she said, as if she was the one who was gonna carry the whole hundred and eighty pounds of him. Ichigo groaned. He guessed he could do with a lookout... And better her than Karin. For all her prickliness and her defensive hostility, Karin would still feel sad and creeped out. Yuzu was sometimes way too Quincy; she'd feel bad if Pantera _suffered_ \-- as long as he didn't make Ichigo suffer first -- but if he did make Ichigo suffer, or after he was dead? That was just empty meat. 

\--

Dull pain all over his right flank. Queasiness. Skin damp with sweat. He knew he shouldn't move before he was even really awake.

Smelled like human man -- young, healthy, vaguely familiar. Mostly traces, nothing warm and alive.

Smelled like Zangetsu, too.

He slit his eyes open, otherwise unmoving. A window behind him had its slats down; streetlamps barred the top half of the room. Boring pale walls, a closet, a door, everything clean and unbroken. So strangely banal, ordinary, a world he'd never known.

Someone's bare feet, pointed at him. 

Feet with clawed toes.

"Hey," Zangetsu said. "You sit up and I'm supposed to finish you off."

He was leaning hard on the desk, head in hand like a bored schoolchild as he stared through a full bone mask, his white hair falling in tangled spikes over bare shoulders. Grimmjow's heart kicked hard in his chest. 

"You taking orders now?" he asked as casually as he could, lifting his head off the pillow.

They'd never been so close without claws and fists being involved. Zangetsu was one of those antiheroes nobody knew shit about, and various groups kept claiming improbable kinship with him, but Grimmjow had known it from the start -- they were the same damn thing, or so close it mattered none at all. With the same violence in their veins and the same devouring hunger and the thoughts at right angles to damn near everything human on this fucking planet.

The last time they'd faced each other Grimmjow had come the closest he'd ever been to dying.

"The girl _feeds me_ , damn straight I'm taking orders."

For a long second Grimmjow actually thought she fed him with hobos, and Zangetsu's reputation for defending people and never finishing off a downed enemy sounded like nothing but propaganda, another lie. The pit that opened in his stomach from sheer disappointment was really unexpected, for the short moment it took his tired brain to think through it.

With how intense their metabolism got... "She raising cows in her backyard or something?" he asked, pushing himself up as carefully as he could. His head swam; he broke into a cold sweat and almost forgot Zangetsu was there entirely, so busy feeling shitty inside his body that every sense he had seemed to shut down in unison. 

"... Yeah, you're dead," Zangetsu said, voice floating oddly in his ears.

Hand on his chest. A shove. Sudden blinding white pain in his side. He choked on nothing and couldn't even curl up for a too-long second.

Then he lashed out. Zangetsu had said -- couldn't -- no.

Pinned down. Where were his claws -- hurt, fuck, _no_ \--

"Calm _down_ or I will _break your fucking neck_ ," Zangetsu let out, the growl so low it seemed to rattle his bones. "You're tearing out your fucking stitches on _clean sheets_."

"Dumbass plan to change them," Grimmjow managed to choke out, eyes closed to fight the spiraling room back to a standstill. If he was holding Grimmjow like _that_ then Zangetsu had to be standing... He tried to calculate the angles to lash out at his belly. Doable. He might tear out the rest of his, apparently, stitches, though. So. Wasn't time for a last resort yet.

"Yeah, yeah, I told him you weren't worth clean sheets, but he's a daft fucker alright. You staying put or do I gotta tie you down?"

Grimmjow was about to reply when -- oh fuck. He tried to twist to the side but there was zero give in the other man's grip.

"That does it," Zangetsu snarled-- 

\--Grimmjow threw up across the bed and probably right onto him.

He felt grimly satisfied about that for maybe two seconds before he passed out again.

\--

Full night the next time he woke up. Some guy with long black hair falling down like silk curtains was looking down at him. He felt distant like a star.

Grimmjow was vaguely thinking he should move when the guy turned away and walked out, closing the door silently behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STILL a very low-priority fic. I have some plot ideas now that go somewhere and might even get an ending but... *low-priority, guys.*

"So what's your name anyway?"

Ichigo smothered a full-body twitch just in time; his pen creaked in his hand, though. A quick glance confirmed what he thought he would find: notorious supervillain Pantera, still sprawled in his bed, long hair spilled everywhere in an unattractive tangled mess of blue and dust and dried blood, skin sallow with blood loss, _in Ichigo's bed on Ichigo's sheets stinking up Ichigo's damn pillow_ , but -- for the first time since the evening of the day before last -- with his eyes open and clear.

"You didn't find that out while you were stalking me before?" Ichigo said dryly, putting the cap back on his pen with a firm, annoyed snap of noise. 

The futon he'd spent the last two nights on was rolled up and propped against the cupboard, and man but he wished he could just drag the asshole down onto it and take back his own damn bed. If Pantera lost any more blood he would probably die this time, though, so Ichigo had had to tolerate every single instinct he had demanding he reclaim his den and cleanse it, probably with fire. It was making him feel pretty twitchy. 

"... Nah," Pantera said, and his voice was strangely casual -- tired but almost _pleasant,_ not intense or haughty or anything. "Wouldn't have been fair."

Ichigo blinked. Wow. He sounded almost like a normal person, instead of a frenzied murder machine. 

"You've got a concept of fairness that covers identities but not addresses?"

Pantera's brow furrowed; then his face went blank, empty. He pushed the covers down a little, freeing his chest, and started to roll on his side. Ichigo was leaning over him in the next second to keep him down.

"Stitches! -- Hey."

... And now there was a hand on his wrist. Black and clawed, with serrated backwards spines on its knuckles. It closed, tight and then tighter. 

"You know what's not fair?" Pantera mused, watching him under heavy, unamused eyelids. "I promised you if you told anyone I was here I'd make the girl pay. And now I'm gonna have to make good on it, or you're gonna think you can fucking clown on me and saunter off."

Ichigo stiffened -- yanked against the grip, only once; it didn't shift. He could smell a hint of fresh blood from the strain but Pantera didn't let him go either, tightened his grasp. Ichigo's wrist was starting to really hurt.

Had he found out about Yuzu? _Fuck_. "What the hell? I didn't!" 

Pantera's lip curled up to unveil slowly growing fangs. It was hypnotic and creepy all at once, like watching a needle come out knowing it was going to be sampling your blood any second now, only the needle was a viper fang. "Then _how was Zangetsu here to tell me to stay in bed_."

\--Oh. Thank God.

"I didn't have to tell him anything," he snapped back, half bent over the mattress and his fingers going an alarming purple. "You realize you're not the only one with a sense of smell, right? You realize _this is basically his fucking house?_ " 

( _'Aww, King,'_ came from the back of his head, but muted, made awkward and too-real by the unthinking way it had come out of Ichigo.)

Pantera paused; stared at him, and then gave a slow blink, and a faster, less _frozen_ one as his grip relaxed. Not enough to pull free, Ichigo couldn't help but notice, nettled. He gave it a pointed tug.

"Doesn't smell like he does more than visit."

Ichigo sighed out his annoyance, tried to loosen his shoulders. Zangetsu was waking inside him and he really didn't need the emotional echo making him mad enough to let his special tapeworm take over.

_'Hey, fuck you. At least call me a chestburster or something badass like that.'_

Ugh.

"Yeah," he agreed tiredly. "But I seriously doubt he has another place. Can you let go?"

Pantera did not, in fact, let go.

"You didn't call him to come over and let him find out," he stated, though more like that was a hypothesis than anything certain.

Ichigo wrinkled his nose. "I don't invite him, he just shows up. He doesn't even have his own cell phone."

"... Hm."

His grasp loosened, allowing blood to flow to Ichigo's fingers once again. Sighing in relief, Ichigo pulled away -- and was brought short when it refused to loosen enough to allow his hand to pass through Pantera's fingers.

"And the other guy?"

Ichigo blinked. "--What other guy?"

"Hmm." Pantera stared another few seconds, and then opened his hand, allowed it to fall back across his body. "Never mind. Get me some water."

"Do you want it as a drink or as a shower?" Ichigo grumbled, disgruntled, but he'd made sure there was a bottle and a glass nearby exactly because after losing so much blood, drinking was a must. He poured him a glass, vaguely glad that at least the guy probably didn't need Ichigo to hand-feed him and worse the way he had over the last couple of days. "Don't sit up, I've got a curly straw."

He secured the glass in a nest of sheets. Pantera tilted his head on the pillow and sipped from the straw, eyes closed almost all the way. Ichigo could feel the man's attention, though, even as he turned back to his desk and the copious amount of homework he had left.

"Guess I'm calling you Tangerine, then."

"--What?"

Pantera gave a half-asleep blink that probably meant to look bored or dismissive or some kind of mocking. "Didn't tell me your name. I can take a hint. But I gotta call you _something_."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Ichigo muttered under his breath. "Listen, it wasn't a hint, I just got sidetracked by your bullshit. It's Kurosaki, which you would have known if you had read the name on the building you're in during your super-stealthy stalking. It's my dad's clinic, so I think any anonymity I had was kinda fucked from the start there."

The man smirked slowly. "Kurosaki... Tangerine? Cantaloupe?"

"Kurosaki _Ichigo_ and fuck the entire way off if you make the strawberry joke, I will drop you into the dumpster _straight from my window_."

Pantera cackled. It didn't even sound mean. "I'll think about it."

\------

Grimmjow had planned to be gone about three days ago -- he wouldn't need more than one night of sleeping safe, right? No way he was injured worse than that -- but then he'd apparently lost consciousness for two days straight and then fainted the five times he'd tried to sneak out of the room after that. (One of those times, he hadn't even managed to sit up in full to open the window; the last one he'd gone out with the thought that it was going to suck passing out on the cold floor, only to wake up in the bed again, blanketed up to his chin and sutures redone in neat rows.)

He _had_ tried to sit up and stand again after that, but mostly to test things out. No superheroes had barged in to take him into custody, or just corpse him up on some poor civilian's childhood bed. He could probably afford to heal up a little more.

Anyway. Four days was a long time to fail to notice a whole-ass other man in your brother's bed, he supposed.

The brunette wasn't the girl he'd seen the first time he cased the place, but her scent was familiar, well-integrated into the house's general smells. He stared at her, deadpan, as she stared back even more deadpan, and wondered what the fuck he was gonna do now. 

Ichigo wasn't home. Grimmjow couldn't stand up. If she screamed and went for the cops there was exactly zilch he could do--

"You know, grunge has been dead for a couple decades now."

\--What.

"... You dissin' my hair, curtains?"

The girl flicked the straight-hanging bangs framing her face behind her ears so she could look further down her nose at him. "You look like a heavy metal has-been after a seven day bender and like, three car accidents. I don't even know how you're gonna salvage this mess. I'd burn it off if I were you."

Grimmjow wasn't sure, exactly, if human 'fight or flight' responses were exactly what he had. Mostly he had _'Calmy thinking about it, should I fight this person_ ' and then he had **' _Kill it now_** ' and he didn't really waste three centuries coming down from it with shaking hands either. 

She wasn't presenting herself like a threat. Grimmjow pressed his lips together, and then -- smirked, couldn't even help it, lopsided and baring teeth on one side. She was like an edgier Ichigo, like she had more to prove in the ways of snark or something. Cute. "Burn it, straight off, huh. Not even scissors first."

"Yep," she replied, popping the P. "I'd definitely be ashamed enough to burn it straight off my skull if I were you."

Heh. 

"Sure, gimme a match."

He had the pleasure of seeing her hesitate, but she narrowed her eyes instead of taking a step back, of giving ground. "You would? Wait, you _could_. Wouldn't burn you. Huh." She gave him another up-and-down look and then frowned determinedly. "Yeah, it's gonna make your stench even worse, so let's start with your scissors idea after all. I'll be right back."

She disappeared. Grimmjow worked on slowly wriggling himself upwards on the pillows. 

She definitely knew what he was, if she knew a little match fire wasn't gonna hurt. But the fearless sass... Huh. He wondered if she hung out with Zangetsu, too. He was kind of surprised her brother let her. From the way Ichigo reacted to him he had a much more accurate impression of Grimmjow's abilities and general temperament. This girl, though, either she'd been coddled, or...

People like them weren't _safe_ for normal humans. Not even the nice, friendly, approachable ones, and Zangetsu sure as fuck wasn't one of those.

On the upside, he was finally gonna get rid of the caked mess of waist-length hair turning his comfy mattress into a nightmare of unreachable itches. He made sure his hands were nice and claws-free to show his appreciation.

The scissors she came back with were round-tipped. He still held out his hand for them.

"I could give you a good haircut, you know," the girl grumbled as she lobbed them at him. 

Grimmjow's hands shook when he lifted them. He rolled onto his side a little so he could brace an elbow on the mattress, and started pulling locks away from his skull and clipping through them. A lot of them pulled in irritatingly painful ways, glued together with old gore.

"Kid," he said as nicely as he knew how, "you touch my neck, you die, okay?"

She let herself drop in the desk chair and set her chin on her hands, slumped forward. "Who-ah," she monotoned, "why did you even need scissors with that edge."

Grimmjow snorted. It hadn't even really been a threat. Just a fact. He didn't know anyone alive who could touch his neck and not have him lash out. 

"You gonna grow it back when you're done?" she asked after a few minutes of Grimmjow painstakingly snipping his way around his head. (He was sure there were weird tufts left over everywhere. Ugh.)

"Mmh? Not yet. Can't keep it tidy for shit when I'm a fucking noodle, can I."

"But _could_ you grow it a little bit? Maybe two inches, tops. I'll get you a mirror and you can fix the edges. Or does it just always grow three feet all at once?"

Grimmjow considered if he even had the fine control necessary to like, layer that shit, or ... wait. Wait. People like him did not really advertise the weird appearance-altering side effects very much. Most of them had _some_ kind of private civilian life to shield. "... How do you even know I can regrow it?"

For a second she froze. 

"Uh -- Ichi -- I mean--"

She went quiet. Grimmjow put the scissors down, pushed up on an elbow to stare at her, waiting for an answer, but she went mulishly silent instead. 

"Zangetsu?"

"... Mnh."

"You cut his hair?"

The girl huffed and crossed her arms, rocking back into her chair. "Ugh, no, he never wants to. He just bunches it up and hacks it off all at once and it looks stupid. You had better not do that! Your hair's a nice color, you need to style it a little."

Grimmjow wasn't too sure how he felt, but either way it was confusing. Amusement at her daring and a touch of pique, that she would assume he didn't know how to look any better than, what was it? A heavy-metal has-been. "I can style it just fine," he grouched half-heartedly. "Just ain't gonna bother while I'm stuck in bed. Why would I get out the blood and replace it with _product_?"

Girl let out a put-upon sigh and rested her head in her hand like his lack of commitment to aesthetics weighed on her very soul. "Fine, fine."

"Gonna call you Lemon. You got the face for it."

She stared at him, looking nonplussed, and then instead of getting offended she laughed. "Can't, that's Yuzu. My sister."

"... Your sister is named _Lemon_."

"No, she's named something that just so happens to sound like citrusy stuff. I'm the artist formerly known as quince. Karin."

Grimmjow stared at her for a few very long seconds, and then started laughing. His ribs hurt like a bitch, but every time he slowed down he would think about Ichigo getting all offended that Grimmjow could possibly dare to call him by fruit names, when his parents had already gone there for the whole litter of them about twenty years back.

He didn't even stop when the girl went out or when she came back with a vacuum and started schlorping up all the loose hair and grit off the mattress around him. It ached and burned deep and he could feel blood pearl up past the stitches but he laughed anyway, harder than he had in a lot of fucking years.

This was just such a ridiculous place, a ridiculous family. A bunch of impossible, fearless idiots, and god but he could glimpse, maybe, what had made Zangetsu so strangely different.

\--

" _Yes_ , Mom, I'll take pictures of the classmates too. I don't even know why you want to see their ugly mugs, it's still mostly the same group as last year. Yeah, yeah."

In his ear, Kurosaki Masaki made a tut-tut noise. " _You know the rules, Icchan! And you know... the **punishment** for breaking those rules!_" 

She had even done the ominous voice. Pffft. Ichigo kicked off his shoes and started making his way through the living room. "Uh huh. Special Kurosaki torture. _Hug_ torture."

" _Excuse you, **cuddle** torture._"

"Fate worse than death," he replied absently, looking around for his sisters. Yuzu would be at her after-school... thing, but Karin wasn't in front of the TV, which usually she hogged like a troll hogs its bridge. Maybe she was in her room. 

... Fuck, he hoped she was in her room.

" _It's good that you'll be ready to meet your fate!_ "

"Yeah, yeah -- what?"

" _Well, you still haven't sent me any pictures of your new cat! Mommy's hurt, you know. She has a grandson she's never met._ "

Ichigo froze in the middle of the staircase. "M-my what? Who told you--"

His brain had just broken in so many directions at once, it was a miracle he hadn't fallen over. Didn't help that Zangetsu woke up enough to poke at his recent memories and start cackling like a hyena.

"Karin!" he hissed, slamming her bedroom door open. Quietly. It was pointless anyway because she wasn't there. Toilet? He hadn't seen the light under the door, though. Out with her friends? 

God, he was lying to himself now, because he knew better. He really knew.

So did Zangetsu, who had in a flash gone from amused to very, very still and was slowly taking over his lungs and heart for longer, more efficient breaths, for oxygen saturation and readiness to deal death. 

In his ear his mom was saying not to be too hard on his sister, that nobody minded and of _course_ nobody thought Ichigo was keeping the cat (she lied, blatantly) but even if he changed his mind that would be fine. 

"...I'll call you back, Mom," Ichigo remembered to say, standing in his own doorway, as he watched his baby sister deal a handful of cards to the supervillain taking up his bed.

" _I want pictures of the new cat!_ " she called out before he could end the call, and Pantera's eyelids twitched minutely.

Pantera, who had gone just as still as Zangetsu had, with the whole of his injured flank exposed to attack but also Ichigo's baby sister _barely a lunge of clawed hands away_.

"Pictures of the new cat, got it," Ichigo said, somehow, detached and floating on a veritable lake of adrenaline. 

He hung up. Lowered his hand. Every inch of space his hand crossed felt like a countdown to sudden violence, Zangetsu's and Pantera's readiness coiling tighter and tighter; Ichigo's, too. 

Karin meanwhile was watching him over her shoulder with her eyes narrowed in fearlessly annoyed warning. 'Don't you dare,' or 'don't blow it.'

"You told Mom I'd _adopted a stray cat?_ "

Looking away from Pantera felt like the last mistake he would ever make but as he did -- Zangetsu snarling to attack first, to pin him to the bed, get in his face, _bite_ \-- he caught Pantera breathing in deep all at once, like he'd been holding it.

"Did you want me to tell her you'd adopted a cage-fighting hobo?"

... Gghh. "Karin, for _fuck's_ sake." Ichigo clenched his hands, released them -- claws still short enough he could retract them the second he felt the prickle in his palms without impaling himself first -- and raked both hands through his hair, working on his breathing. 

Pantera was still watching him, but now he was throwing little glances at his sister, too, and his mouth had loosened enough to start curling into the ghost of a smile. 

"You could have told her _nothing_. I know you know who he is."

"A grungy furry?"

"You keep dissin' me like this and I'm gonna get annoyed, curtains," Pantera warned, but his voice was so full of lazy amusement it only made Ichigo's sister roll her eyes and smirk at him. Pantera blinked back slowly and reclined all of two, significant inches on his pillows, putting obvious if entirely pointless distance between them. Ichigo gratefully stepped closer to the bed so he could get in front of her if he needed it.

He was starting to think that maybe he wouldn't. The relief was dizzying.

_'Don't trust it_ ,' Zangetsu reminded him, low and growling. ' _He could mean it. He could mean it right now and change his mind two seconds later. She ain't his, he's got no reason to mind himself.'_

Ichigo swallowed, looking down at the man. He looked... Oh, he looked odd with short hair, flyaway, barely ear-length locks of blue instead of that long, ragged banner. Made him look less like a wild thing, an old forgotten godling from the depths of some jungle, and more like someone who could actually show up in town to window-shop and not be immediately stared at. Well, not more than the hair color and face tattoo alone warranted, and people who dyed their hair weird shades _existed_ , it didn't have to mean alien infestation.

They stared at each other for another handful of seconds and then Pantera said, "Stop looming," a bit gruff but not all that aggressive, considering. 

"Yeah, yeah. Karin, get out of my chair."

"You could sit on the floor," she grumped, but stood anyway. Probably could tell he was getting honestly frazzled.

Ichigo sat, and immediately turned a long, expectant stare on her, hand up. "Cards."

"Hey, that's _my_ game. I was winning."

"Cards, and get me a drink from the kitchen."

"Hey!"

"You _told mom on me_. Cards. Drink. Shoo."

Karin's eyes narrowed, going between the two of them with suspicion and wariness that hadn't even been there a minute ago, while keeping an actual supervillain company. Ichigo narrowed his eyes meanly. 

"I already know he's here, you don't need to keep any more secrets from me."

Ichigo bit down on Zangetsu's growl. 

"Think he wants to do the 'touch my sister and die' routine," Pantera drawled, amused, his head tilted on the pillow just enough to bare a hint of throat. That didn't read as surrender at all, only as teasing, as a dare he knew nobody would take him up on--

_'Zan?'_

_'He would fucking deserve it if I did_ ,' his alien tapeworm growled lowly back, their mouth watering at the thought of flesh parting between their teeth and blood and a _scar_.

Karin hesitated before handing her cards to Ichigo, eyes flicking between the two of them. Ichigo sighed. "We're not going to fight. He'd bleed like a stuck pig on my mattress, _again_."

"... Fine." She gave Pantera a gimlet stare. "Your one and only warning, grungy -- Ichi fights fair, but I don't."

Ichigo waited to hear her stomping all the way down the stairs before he opened his mouth, and was beaten to the punch by Pantera, who was running a thumb across his hand of cards thoughtfully as he watched him.

"She's got powers, don't she."

... Had Ichigo thought he was _out_ of the lake of adrenaline? More the fool he. It was like being dunked through ice into a polar sea. ' _How the fuck??'_ was barely louder than ' _kill him now / he thinks she's a threat **kill him now**.'_

He licked dry lips, tried to find the least incriminating answer he could, only managed an unsteady "What?"

Pantera rolled his eyes. "She didn't get nervous until she had to leave you alone with me. She ain't stupid, but she's too fucking sure of herself. She's got powers, you don't." A quick raking glance, assessing. "Or at least not enough."

Ichigo opened his mouth, closed it. 

Well. Technically...

Well.

"She goin' out in a cape yet?"

Ichigo growled. "No, and if she tries it again I will ground her until she's seventy."

Pantera arched an eyebrow. " _Again_."

Ichigo rubbed the palm of his hand from forehead to chin with a guts-deep groan, grimacing, even as he felt himself relax. The conversation moving away from him and whatever his deal was was a huge relief. And if he could make Karin look endearingly too cocky and _not a threat_ , all the better. 

"The first time, she was eleven. _Nope_. Nope, nope, nope."

"Heh."

Ichigo managed a smile somehow. Look, buddy, everybody's friendly here. Just chatting. "She doesn't pack enough of a punch to get anywhere without serious training to maximize her stuff, and Dad told her she had to finish high school first, so we're safe for a little bit longer. But... Nope. If Spoonhead or Ira or some asshole like that even looks twice her way I'm gonna have to find a way to stuff dynamite up their assholes in the dead of night. And then I'll never feel clean again."

He felt pretty proud of himself when Pantera laughed, and not even in a sadistic way either.

_'Because you tricked him, right.'_

_'Wha -- uh. Right. Because I tricked him. Of course.'_ Why _else_ would he be proud of amusing him. He cleared his throat, tried on a smile he could tell was weird, wiped it off his face too fast. Pantera snorted at him. 

"Relax. So long as she doesn't talk to anyone else I'm not gonna hold it against you."

"Well, she did kind of tell my mom," Ichigo replied without thinking, and then winced. "Uh, never mind."

Never mind, especially because Yuzu had told Dad the second he called home that first evening, so he wouldn't go upstairs accidentally and elbow drop the supervillain lounging on Ichigo's bedsheets.

Pantera made a little humming noise of acknowledgement; didn't get angry, didn't sneer. Ichigo wondered how tired he was. He'd been asleep four entire days, bar brief moments where he needed to be aimed at a bedpan and even then Ichigo was almost entirely certain he hadn't been fully aware of things. 

Ichigo would have liked not being aware of things. Like the weight of his limp dick in Ichigo's hand as Ichigo was forced to take over guiding him. That had been... Yeah, no.

_'Why haven't you chomped that memory out of my head yet?'_ he whined to Zangetsu. Zangetsu rolled imaginary eyes back. 

_'Not my job, King. Also, it's too funny. You realize he's got a good chance of smelling you on him at some point if he manages to wipe the filth off his face and stops swamping his own nose, right?'_

_'... Oookay so first item on the list, a hot bath with every single bottle of sudsy shit Yuzu and Karin have in their little baskets!'_

Zangetsu laughed harder, sharing an image of a wet and naked Pantera slipping in the tub and drowning because he couldn't sit up, and then one of Ichigo diving down after him to lift him out by the armpits and getting clawed to ribbons. In his imagination Pantera had regained his usual long hair and it was plastered to him ridiculously, like a drenched persian cat.

"Makin' a weird face there, Tangerine."

"Oh, fuck off," Ichigo retorted without thought, the same way he would have replied to Ishida or Rukia.

Like he had never faced off with the guy at midnight in a roaring storm, trying to make him drop the terrified hostage. Like he'd never been left wobbling and throwing up in the gutter, mask and skull cracked, trying to get away from the police looking for the criminal he'd failed to keep from escaping. 

Like he'd never been a scrawny fifteen and barely started, wrestling for control and terrified of losing it, trying what felt like his last chance to channel that violence, that _other_ inside him, and being faced with what he might become if he ever said, _fuck it, let's have fun with this_. 

And getting fucking curbstomped. Yeah. Also that.

_' **That** ain't ever gonna happen again_,' Zangetsu assured him, growling quietly.

"So," he said, not knowing what he was going to say next.

"So," Pantera echoed him, faintly mocking, but behind that, mostly wary. 

They looked at each other in silence for a little bit. Ichigo couldn't even start imagining what the guy was thinking about. 

"You got a mom? Smell's so faded I thought she'd done a runner on the lot of you."

Ichigo narrowed his eyes; his heart jumped, and from Pantera's faint eyebrow twitch, his ghost of a smirk, he noticed. "No. She's -- doing outreach stuff. Charity. Conference. _Things_. She's very busy at the other end of the planet. Change of topic."

"Sure," he said, insultingly slowly. Ichigo glared for a second and then sighed. Guy looked too half-dead to get all that pissed off at.

"Anyway. Do you have anything you want to ask as long as you're awake? Messages to drop, anything?"

"... I'm good."

"You sure? I could take precautions. Triple-drop secret services stuff. There's got to be some way I can't learn anybody's identity."

The tired look the man gave him stopped Ichigo cold. "There's nobody to tell, kid."

... Oh.

Um. Shit. Ichigo's first instinct was to ask if Pantera was sure. Not even drinking buddies? Stolen-goods fences? ... _Nobody_?

Had he come here after Zangetsu's scent because a guy who tried to kill him twice a month was the closest he had to a reliable acquaintance?

"Nobody I trust while I can't whoop their ass," Pantera corrected, as if that made it any better. 

"Okay," Ichigo said slowly, and tried to wipe his sympathy off his face. A hollow-type alien -- no, they called themselves arrancar, didn't they, the sentient ones, the half-human -- an arrancar wasn't going to take it as anything but insulting. Being sorry for his own private tapeworm had only ever provoked rage and redoubled efforts to take him over. 

_'If it's weak,'_ Zangetsu said, but absently, _'it's food.'_

_'... Does he look like food right now?'_ Ichigo asked cautiously, nose wrinkled. Because as well-fed as Ichigo tried to keep him (and himself, by association) there were still moments when he was on a job where a bloodied body looked tasty.

_'Hm. Nah. Too bland. Then again if I bite him he's gonna fight back, that'll probably help.'_

The laughing croon in his mind voice said there was a joke in there and it was probably on Ichigo, but Ichigo knew better than to attempt to get it out of him. The punchline was going to be gross, guaranteed.

Meanwhile Pantera had loosened, and now seemed to progressively melt into his cushion, slowly letting his head weigh down on it. Ichigo made sure not to appear to notice, lest he tense up all over again. 

"So, Zangetsu won't be blowing a gasket that I've been here so long, then," Pantera said, not quite like he was sure of it. "Well, good to know."

"Oh, Zangetsu is absolutely blowing a gasket," Ichigo assured him. "Zangetsu is blowing about ten gaskets per day. But he can blow all the gaskets he wants; this is my bed and I decide who gets in it. So you're cool. Stay put until you stop fainting like a damsel, okay? He can share for a week, it won't kill him."

An odd moment of quiet, the man's blue eyes seeming to try to read into his soul, and then he sighed, rolled a little more on his back, and fanned out the cards in his hands. "Well, I don't think she's getting you that drink, so let's finish this fucking game." 

Ichigo snorted, smiled. "Yeah, I'm going to end up wearing it at a surprise time this evening, I bet." He looked down at his inherited hand of cards. "Oh, what the hell, how was she winning again?"

"Heh."

\--

Well.

Zangetsu and Ichigo weren't fucking, or he would have smelled it. Nose down in Ichigo's pillows, no way he could have missed that. But that 'he can share' meant Zangetsu did have _some_ kind of right to the bed, which meant they were probably gonna get there eventually. That was one rule he couldn't even fathom humans not having -- if you let some 'friend' put a timeshare on your nest, you had to want them in there _with you_. While you were half-naked, vulnerable, and there was no space to keep from being all over each other. Didn't matter that Ichigo was too weak to be a real threat; when you were asleep _everything_ was a threat.

Which meant Grimmjow was cockblocking. 

He sighed quietly, looking over his cards without quite seeing them. The most he'd ever wanted from Zangetsu was a hard fuck against some alley wall, anyway -- maybe a _series_ of hard fucks -- and none of the innuendoes he'd ever thrown out had been picked up. People like them didn't date, didn't hang out in each other's childhood bedroom and slowly work up to holding hands while wearing each other's shirts. At best they pair-bonded, packed up, but that was convenience and lust, codependence, not... 

People like him didn't, but apparently people who managed to run into someone fearless and ridiculously accepting like Ichigo did.

How weird. He didn't know what to feel about it.

He closed his eyes for a minute to think about that, pretending to think about the cards, and blinked his eyes open and he was too warm and the room was dark. 

The room was dark and his eyelids were all gummy and gross and the blankets too heavy. Ichigo's scent was on his hand, empty of cards. Ichigo's futon was unrolled but empty. 

He wondered if the guy had gone to see Zangetsu. 

He wondered if his nose was fucking dead and his brain cooked through. Some asshole was sitting at the foot of his bed, back pressed against the edge of the windowsill, something pale and square in hand. Smell of paper. Rustling of pages. 

Ragged waterfall of black hair.

"Good evening, Pantera."

Who _was_ this motherfucker.

He didn't smell like anything. He didn't _feel_ like anything. He didn't look at Grimmjow, just at his book, like he didn't care he was in kicking range. The bed barely seemed to dip under him. 

Grimmjow fought his screaming abdominals to sit up against the headboard, caught himself shuddering, and then going cold all at once, and then too hot like it was rushing back in. It wasn't fair, he'd been feeling _better_.

The guy turned another page.

Grimmjow was about to ask who the fuck he was, but the guy spoke first.

"What do you want out of life, Pantera?"

... What?

"The fuck."

The man finally turned his head to look at him; his lower face was shadowed by a scarf wrapped around his neck (but it was so warm though) and hair fell across his eyes; but they gleamed, blood red in the dark as he waited expectantly.

"To... live?" Another, vaguely dissatisfied hum. Grimmjow scowled through the brain fog. "Rub it in everybody's face that I ain't letting myself die anytime soon. What's this, philosophy hour?"

"I guess." 

He unfolded; Grimmjow tensed, hissed when his wound reminded him it was a stupid idea. Another cold sweat ran over his body.

"Do you need fresh air or another blanket?"

... Grimmjow was too damn hot as it was. "No blanket."

The man leaned over the bed and pulled the window panes open; hopped weightlessly across to sit on the sill with his book in hand. The street lamps dug starker shadows in his face, highlighted a cheekbone that looked... almost familiar.

Cold air rolled in from the window; Grimmjow shivered, filled up his lungs. Felt himself grow calmer just from having a way out. 

A few streets away a car rolled by. The breeze brought in small night noises, a quiet murmur of safe-calm-no enemies right now. He let his eyes close halfway to listen to it better.

"I want to experience uniqueness."

"... Huh?"

The man gazed out at the neighbor's house, the city skyline beyond that. "What I want out of life." He glanced back down at the book, closed around his thumb. "Ichigo likes Shakespeare. I'm still deciding. Have you read any of his works?"

Maybe he was hallucinating. He sure as fuck had a fever. He could see and hear the guy and he'd always trusted his senses a hundred and ten percent but he couldn't _smell_ him, and just... his brain felt full of cotton; he had no sense of any time passing between playing cards with Ichigo and waking here, still half-dreaming.

"Never went to school, so no."

"What do you like to do? On your downtime, when there's no mission."

Huh. Mission. Grimmjow didn't get missions, not anymore, but that wasn't an innocuous word, was it. Not a normal, civilian word at all.

"Violence? Violence is cool. Destroying things." He racked his brain for a way to explain it. Nobody who wasn't an arrancar ever reacted like that was a normal thing to like. "Jumping off buildings, high-speed chases, crashing through... Walls. Windows." Moving. Strength. Impacts.

The guy tilted his head, consideringly. "A broken window does crack in a visually satisfying way. Though the mirror was prettier. Like a fractal."

Grimmjow had apparently found an alien who was even more alien than he was. Huh. He couldn't even feel threatened; it was too odd. He laughed, low and rough, huddled down into the pillows. The air was nice against his sweaty face but too cold elsewhere; he wanted to nest. 

"You're shivering."

... Did the guy know how a body worked? Granted, arrancar bodies worked weird compared to humans, but come on. "Cold now."

"Oh. Should I close the window?"

Grimmjow pulled the comforter up. It was stupidly unwieldy. "Whatever. Yeah." 

He had the thought that this bedroom was like Grand Central, and laughed to himself. Open to all comers, it seemed. Didn't change much whether the window stayed open. 

He didn't really like the thought of sleeping with a stranger in the room but was too tired to get fussed about it. Chasing the man off would be too much effort, and he... Grimmjow didn't... If he was Ichigo's friend, it was probably... Maybe Ichigo had asked him to keep an eye on Grimmjow while he went out to do who knew what. Drive Zangetsu's getaway vehicle as the cops tried to make them stop their vigilantism. Go to the cinema. Some kind of date, at any rate.

"Who are you anyway?" he mumbled, eyes already closing. 

The man sat back at the foot of the bed, cracked his book open. "You may call me Mugetsu."

Grimmjow opened his eyes again to stare at the far wall and try to figure out if he had heard what he'd thought he had heard, and then decided that fuck this shit, he was going to pass out and care about it tomorrow. Then he passed out.

\--

Ichigo woke up with his alarm at seven, yawned, and almost jumped out of his skin. Pantera was giving him the most unimpressed, sweat-soaked-sick-and-yet-still-more-sick-of-your-bullshit look he had ever seen. 

"So is your place a shelter for urban legends and cryptids or what?"

"... I have no idea what you're talking about," Ichigo lied, blatantly, and absconded to the bathroom as fast as he humanly could.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The angle in the vertex](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24705298) by [Treegona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegona/pseuds/Treegona)




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